MooMooFoodie

NY Times: Chicks With Something to Peep About (Marshmallows)

 

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April 15, 2011

Chicks With Something to Peep About

By MELISSA CLARK

AT Easter time, when the shops erupt in a pastel frenzy of chocolate bunnies, candy eggs and marshmallow chicks, I try hard to resist. Unless I’m buying an artisanal rabbit made from single-origin chocolate, most of the confections look a lot better than they taste.

The most cloying offenders are fluffy marshmallow chicks, which don’t actually taste like anything beyond a tooth-aching sugary burst. (Although after they’ve aged, unwrapped, for a few days, the sugar coating does harden into a pleasingly gritty crust.)

So of all the D.I.Y. projects I’ve contemplated, nothing could be more apropos than making my own Easter chicks.

I had already developed a recipe for homemade marshmallows that was not only airy and light, but also had a complex flavor from substituting good, fragrant honey for the bland corn syrup.

The only problem was the color: my marshmallows are white. Every toddler on our playground knows chicks are yellow and Easter bunnies are, of course, pink. A few drops of food coloring massaged into a sugar coating would help, but if I wanted my candy to really stand apart, I could tint it with something that tasted good, too.

A small pinch of ground saffron, I hoped, would give a faint yellow cast while adding an earthy, spicy note to my chicks, and pomegranate juice would put the pink in my bunnies’ cheeks along with a tart and fruity nuance.

Both recipes were hits with the under-3 crowd and their parents, particularly after I let the critters age unwrapped for a few days to stiffen up.

Then I started spinning out variations, trying grape juice for lavender marshmallow Easter eggs sprinkled with dark green sanding sugar for a sparkling contrast.

And for something even more intense, I added matcha powder to make green tea marshmallows with a bracing bitter note. I spooned this verdant fluff over a shortbread cookie crust, then topped it with candied ginger for a vaguely s’mores-inspired bar cookie with a much more exotic flavor.

It made a nice moss-hued pasture for my sugared animals to graze. I’ll bet they would have even enjoyed the taste.

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Saffron Honey Marshmallows

Time: 45 minutes, plus 4 hours to set

 

6 drops yellow food coloring (optional)

2/3 cup superfine sugar

2 cups plus 1 teaspoon granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon crumbled saffron threads

3 tablespoons unflavored gelatin (about 3 envelopes)

1/4 cup honey

2 large egg whites

1/4 teaspoon kosher salt.

 

1. Place parchment or waxed paper on the bottom and sides of a 12 7/8-by-

17 3 /4-inch baking sheet. If using the food coloring, combine it with the superfine sugar in a small bowl; stir or massage with your fingers until color is evenly distributed. Sift half of the superfine sugar, with or without color, over the bottom of the pan.

2. Using a spice grinder or mortar and pestle, finely grind 1 teaspoon granulated sugar with the saffron threads. Place in a bowl and cover with 2 tablespoons very hot water. When cool, cover with 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons cold water. Stir the gelatin into the water and let rest until the mixture becomes very thick.

3. In a saucepan over medium heat, cook the remaining 2 cups granulated sugar, honey and 1/2 cup water, stirring, until the sugar dissolves and the mixture reaches 240 degrees on a candy thermometer.

4. Meanwhile, with an electric mixer on medium speed, whisk the egg whites and salt until soft peaks form, about 4 minutes. With the mixer running, carefully pour the 240-degree sugar syrup down the side of the mixing bowl in a slow and steady drizzle. Continue whisking until the mixture has cooled slightly, about 2 minutes. Scrape in the gelatin mixture. Continue whisking until the mixture begins to thicken and quadruples in volume, about 10 minutes. Scrape the mixture into the prepared pan and smooth the top. Sift the remaining superfine sugar over the marshmallows. Allow marshmallows to set for 4 hours or overnight at room temperature.

5. Use cookie cutters or a knife to cut marshmallows into shapes or squares.

Yield: About 2 dozen marshmallows.

Pomegranate variation: Eliminate the food coloring and skip Step 2. Stir the gelatin into 1 cup pomegranate juice and let it thicken. Proceed with Step 3.

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Green Tea-Ginger Marshmallow Shortbread

Time: 45 minutes, plus 4 hours to set

 

2 cups all-purpose flour

2/3 cup sifted powdered sugar

1 teaspoon kosher salt

2 sticks unsalted butter

3 tablespoons unflavored gelatin (about 3 envelopes)

4 teaspoons matcha (green tea powder)

2 large egg whites

2 cups granulated sugar

1/4 cup honey

1/2 cup finely chopped candied ginger

3 tablespoons superfine sugar.

 

1. Heat the oven to 325 degrees. In a food processor fitted with a blade, pulse together flour, sugar and 3/4 teaspoon salt. Add the butter and pulse to fine crumbs. Pulse a few more times until some crumbs start to come together, but do not overprocess. Dough should not be smooth. Press dough into an ungreased 9-by-13-inch baking pan. (It won’t look as if you have enough, but keep pressing and it will cover the pan in a thin layer.) Prick dough all over with a fork. Bake until golden brown, 35 to 40 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and cool completely.

2. In a small bowl, whisk the gelatin and matcha together. Stir in 1 cup cold water. Rest the mixture until it thickens.

3. In the bowl of an electric mixer, whisk the egg whites and the remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt on medium speed, until soft peaks form, about 4 minutes. Stop the mixer.

4. In a saucepan over medium heat, cook the granulated sugar, honey and 1 cup water, stirring until the sugar dissolves and the mixture reaches 240 degrees on a candy thermometer. Start the mixer on medium-high and carefully pour the hot syrup down the side of the mixing bowl into the whites in a slow and steady drizzle. Continue mixing until the mixture has cooled slightly, about 2 minutes. Scrape in the gelatin mixture. Continue mixing on medium-high speed until the mixture begins to thicken and quadruples in volume, about 10 minutes. Scrape the mixture into the pan with the shortbread, smoothing the top with an offset spatula. Rub together the candied ginger and superfine sugar to break up any clumps. Sprinkle over the top of the marshmallows. Let marshmallows set for 4 hours or overnight at room temperature. Cut into squares.

Yield: About 2 dozen servings.

FT: Zen and the art of vegetarian cooking

Zen and the art of vegetarian cooking

By Kimiko Barber

Published: March 27 2010 00:18 | Last updated: March 27 2010 00:18

It is a quarter to five in the morning and I have been sitting in the lotus position for the past 15 minutes, though it feels like an eternity. And there are six of these 50-minute sessions daily, over three days, to endure.

What has brought me, a lapsed Catholic, to a Zen meditation training course at the Eihei-ji temple (tel: +81 (0)776 63 3640), deep in the remote, snowy Japanese Alps? I want to experience shojin ryori – Buddhist vegetarian cuisine – in the context of daily temple life.

Dogen, the founder of Eihei-ji, was born in 1200 into an aristocratic family in Kyoto and entered the Buddhist priesthood at 14. He set up an ashram where he began preaching and, in 1244, built Eihei-ji temple at an almost inaccessible mountainous site.

Dogen wrote books and sutra – collections of literary aphorisms – covering almost every aspect of the daily life of a Zen monk, even mundane acts such as washing or going to the lavatory. He believed that everyday routine – including food and cooking – was an important part of Zen training. Tenzo Kyoukun (Kitchen Instructions) was the first of six rulebooks he produced.

At half past five, we hear monks reciting sutra in unison. The rhythmic accompaniment of a giant wooden gong and a deep bass drum echoes around the vast, freezing prayer hall, muffling the rumblings of my stomach. It is only after more than an hour of morning prayer, and the walk down chilly corridors to the kitchen for more prayers to the kitchen god, that we collect our breakfast in lacquer vessels.

Nineteen of us voluntary inmates sit in lotus position at a raised tatami mat platform, our eating implement bundles before us. Each bundle is wrapped in navy linen, which doubles as a placemat, and contains a white linen tea towel, a grey napkin, four different-sized black lacquer bowls stacked like Russian matryoshka dolls, a pair of chopsticks, a spoon and a cloth-tipped black lacquer cleaning pallet.

Zen breakfast is frugal: a soupy plain rice congee, one sour red pickled plum, a few slices of pickled white radish and a spoonful of ground black sesame seeds mixed with salt. Trainee monks serve the dishes. We chant the Zen equivalent of grace, put our hands together at eye-level and bow deeply, before being allowed to eat the (by now lukewarm) congee. At the end of the meal we clean our bowls with tea and hot water, put away the implements according to the rules and recite more prayers. This simple breakfast has taken us nearly an hour and half from start to finish.

By the middle of the second day we are still struggling to cope with mealtime protocols. So the head of missionary section, monk Nishida Shobou, decides to talk us through Dogen’s Tenzo Kyoukun, in which both the practical and philosophical elements of shojin ryori are spelt out.

He begins by explaining the five-verse prayer that asks you to receive food with gratitude for all the human endeavours involved in its preparation: not just cooks but also farmers, delivery drivers, the makers of farm tools and even supermarket cashiers. The food should be accepted in order to sustain body and soul for attaining spiritual enlightenment.

The “kitchen instructions” list three spirits for cooks. Ki shin (“joyful spirit”) emphasises cooking with joy and gratitude for receiving the task. Rou shin (“old spirit”) instructs cooks to think of those who will eat and to make the food tasty and easy to handle. Tai shin (“big heart”) asks cooks to approach the task with pure, uncluttered minds.

Nishida recalls an occasion when he was nearly derobed and expelled from the temple. For a big tea party lunch in honour of a high priest, he had carved carrots into plum flowers. The head of the kitchen summoned him and declared that the carrot flowers “reeked of vanity and were inedible”. He narrowly escaped disgrace by explaining that he had used carrot leftovers – the kitchen instructions say cooks must use every edible part of a vegetable. The spirit of wasting nothing extends even to water. The bowl of tea and the hot water that is used to clean eating implements should be drunk, and the little that remains used to water trees.

Nishida’s talk seems to have the desired effect, as the length of mealtimes begins to shorten and I am able to enjoy each mouthful. At one meal I find the rice to have a nostalgia-inducing sweetness; a simmered dish of mizuna, shiitake, carrot and burdock is refined; and a block of deep-fried tofu is crispy and succulent.

Back in England, friends asked if I have attained Zen enlightenment. Perhaps not quite yet. But of one thing I am sure: Dogen’s 760-year-old doctrine seems fresh and modern in its sustainability and relevant for today’s often wasteful kitchens.

Kimiko Barber is author of ‘The Chopsticks Diet’ (Kyle Cathie)

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010.